


All the Way Down

by bashert



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: Brian Brenner's a jerk, F/M, Past Abuse, season 1 AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-08
Updated: 2015-02-08
Packaged: 2018-03-06 14:51:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3138320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bashert/pseuds/bashert
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>He hadn't even allowed himself to think that it might be more than words.</i>
  <br/>
  <i>But Molly had all but confirmed it.</i>
  <br/>
  <i>And he brought Brian back. </i>
</p><p>Season 1 AU. After Brian's article is published, Will learns a little more about Mac and Brian's relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. You have broken me all the way down

**Author's Note:**

> This came about because of Emily and Emily. I thank them and curse them in equal parts. The title comes from the song from the "Once" soundtrack, and I didn't think when I mentioned I would write this that it would turn into a multichapter story. But here we are.

It was a hatchet job, Brian's article.

It was worse than a hatchet job, and the staff were scrambling to stay out of Will’s line of fire until things settled back down.

Will was _loud_ about his displeasure. His temper was quick and explosive, and no one got the brunt of his anger more than MacKenzie in the days following the publication.

Will had gotten loud, and Mac had gotten quiet. She disappeared into her office after the rundown meetings and only came back out in the minutes before the broadcast. When the broadcast ended, she made sure to clear the hell out of the office before Will was done changing.

It was tense, and _awful._

The staff skirted around both bosses, trying their best to make sure nothing else came up that might ignite Will’s rage. They collectively voted for Jim to be the one try to talk to Mac ( _no one_ was willing to talk to Will in his current state), tell her that they were all in her corner, and he knocked on her office door a couple days after the article to find her in her chair, head tipped back, eyes shut, and her mouth in a thin line.

Jim had spent enough time around Mac to know that she was hanging on by a thread, and he cleared his throat and her eyes flew open, straightening herself in her chair, and squaring her shoulders in a defensive posture before she realized it was just Jim, and relaxed a little, slumping down slightly.

“Hey, Jim,” her voice was weary, and as he came closer he noticed that her eyes were red rimmed.

God _damn_ both Brian Brenner and Will McAvoy. She didn’t deserve this, and Jim’s hands tightened into fists at his side as he thought about the heat Mac was taking from Will about so many things, not just this stupid article, but so very many things, that went by unappreciated (or worse, _unnoticed_ ). She continued to take whatever Will threw at her, spine straightened, head back, eyes defiant, but there was a cost, always a cost, and it was starting to wear her down.

Jim could see it, her eyes had dimmed and her enthusiasm had flagged, and if he had to pinpoint the exact moment that happened, it would have been when Will invited Brian fucking Brenner into the newsroom. Into _her_ newsroom.

Jim wasn't sure of all the dirty details of MacKenzie's relationship with Brian, but there had been long nights while they huddled together for warmth and safety, and stories had spilled out. There had been stories about hands a little too tight around her wrists, and a few shoves that had thrown her into the wall, or one memorable night down a set of steps. Mac always tried to soften these,

“He was just pushing me to get past me,” she'd hurry to explain. “I don't think he meant to hurt me.”

Or,

“It was just a few steps, I think I might have tripped during our fight, and anyway, he was too drunk to come to the emergency room, there would have been too many questions.”

When she would tell him about Brian, she would become someone that Jim didn't quite recognize. An image of a woman that didn't quite fit with what he knew of the woman that was in front of him. She would become defensive and cagey, twisting the blanket between her fingers as she bit down on her lip, and Jim wondered what in the hell damage Brian had done other than physical.

“I was young,” Mac would shrug. “Stupid, and anyway, it's over now. After Will and I got serious I finally saw Brian for what he really was. A manipulative, selfish, well, _butthead._ ” She giggled a little bit, and then her face fell. “I don't know.” Her voice was small, and she started to curl in on herself, before Jim grabbed her hand in the darkness and gave it a squeeze.

“His loss,” Jim was firm. “ _Both_ of their losses.”

"What can I help you with?" Mac asked, and Jim shoved his hands in his pockets.

"We, uh, everyone, just wanted you to know that, well, the way Will's been treating you lately," Jim started, but then stopped. It sounded so stupid. _We're on your side._ It sounded so worthless. _We won't stand up for you because we're too afraid of Will's wrath, but we appreciate that you're taking one for the team._ It sounded selfish and cowardly. "I'm going to talk to him," Jim finished, deciding that was what he was going to to do.

Mac raised an eyebrow and shook her head lightly.

"You don't have to throw yourself in front of Will for me, I'm a big girl," she replied, and then gave him a small smile. "Though I do appreciate the offer." She shrugged. "It'll pass. He'll get over it soon enough and things can go back to the way they were." There was something in her voice, a wistfulness that didn't allude Jim, as if the last thing she would want was for things to go back to the way they were before.

"Mac," Jim said.

"It really is fine, Jim," Mac assured him. "I'll be fine. It was a stupid article and it's over. It's fine."

 _Jesus,_ Jim wanted to say, _the last thing it is is fine_.

* * *

 Three days after the article was published, Will answered his phone with a distracted,

“Yeah?”

“You're a real douchebag, you know that McAvoy?”

“Excuse me?” It took him a minute to place the voice. “ _Molly_?”

“How could you do that to her?” Molly demanded.

“What are you talking about?” Will thought he knew which _her_ Molly was referring to, but he wasn't quite sure what he had done to deserve the kind of vitriol in Molly's voice.

“Brian Fucking Brenner,” Molly seethed. “You brought him in to write that article. How _could_ you?”

“First of all,” Will said, trying to keep his temper even. “Not that it's any of your business, but I thought based on his skills and...”

“Fuck that,” Molly interrupted. “ _Fuck_ that. Do you have _any_ idea what it was like to have her show up on your doorstep in the middle of the night asking to sleep at your apartment because she and Brian had a fight? Do you know how it feels to sit at dinner with your smart, _capable_ friend and listen to her piece of shit boyfriend belittle her in public? Or worse, getting called down to the emergency room at three in the morning because Mac 'fell down the steps?' after a fight with him?” The words spilled out of Molly, and Will froze, painfully aware of his heart pounding against his chest.

She couldn’t be saying...there was no way.

“Wait, _what_?” Will reached out to grab his pack of cigarettes, but his hand was shaking too much to try to light it. If Molly was saying what he thought she might be saying, if Brian had _hurt_ Mac, and he brought that asshole back into the office, back into her life...then... _fuck_.

“It took _so_ long to get Mac to see what an absolute asshole Brian was, _is_ , and she finally got away from him, _finally_ , and you bring him back in to write a stupid fucking article? What is _wrong_ with you? There are thousands of writers, Will, thousands, and you had to pick Brian? Why? To rub her mistakes in her face? To make her feel small? Are you proud of yourself?” Molly’s voice was rising, and Will winced as if her words were physically hitting him.

“No, I…” he started. “No, that’s not…I didn’t know. I had no idea that...I wouldn’t have..I _never_ would have…” He ran a frustrated hand over his face, but his mind was racing.

Mac had never talked about Brian, not really (not until the morning she sat Will down and told him that she had slept with Brian. Will hadn’t listened to the rest, hadn’t listened to her try to explain). There were a few comments, here and there, that had made Will pause, but he hadn’t pushed her, and Mac hadn’t offered up more details.

And the truth was, although he wouldn’t admit this to one of Mac’s oldest friends, he wasn’t sure why he had brought Brian in (which wasn’t _quite_ true. When he was being brutally honest with himself he knew that he brought Brian in to punish Mac).

“I thought more of you, Will,” Molly said, her voice softening. “I really did. I know she hurt you, but I never thought you’d go this low.”

“Molly,” he tried again, but she had already hung up.

He didn’t understand. He _needed_ to understand.

He stood up from his chair so fast that he nearly tipped it over, and he threw open his door and moved towards Mac’s office. He knocked twice, hard, but didn’t wait for a reply as he barged in.

“Mac,” he said, and then he took a good, hard look at her. She looked tired, but more than that, she looked _sad_ , and he had done that to her. That was on him.

“Yes, Will?” She asked, bracing herself, and it was his turn to feel small. And now that he was here, in front of her, the words didn’t want to come (he pushed aside the thought, unwelcome and cowardly, more than the words wouldn’t come, he didn’t really want to _know_. He didn’t want to have to confront it, make it real).

“I think we should move the unemployment statistics to the C block,” he chickened out, and she narrowed her eyes in slight confusion, but then nodded.

“Okay,” she said easily. “We’ll move it. Is that all?”

"Yeah," he said, and she turned her chair away, effectively dismissing him.

Oh, he had screwed up. Big time. _Fuck_.

* * *

The broadcast went fine. Not their best showing, but as good as it could have gone considering his mind was no where near the show.

It was his turn to rush out of the office as soon as they went off the air, not stopping to talk to anyone (although it probably didn't matter. It had not escaped his attention that no one had said an unnecessary word to him in days.)

Lonny drove him home in silence, and Will mumbled a goodbye as he slid out of the backseat and walked into his building.

Upstairs, Will grabbed a bottle of scotch and a pack of cigarettes and made himself comfortable on the chaise lounge on his balcony.

It was going to be a long night.

He didn’t bother with a glass, tipping the bottle back and taking a long sip. It was good scotch, smooth, and it hardly burned going down. He lit a cigarette and took a long drag.

Brian had hurt her.

Will had gathered that it was not a healthy relationship, but he had never thought that Brian had been abusive.

 _No, that wasn’t true_ , a little voice said. He had suspected that Brian might be verbally abusive, but he hadn’t wanted to admit that to himself. He hadn’t wanted to put in words his suspicions, voice his fear.

He hadn't even allowed himself to think that it might be more than words.

But Molly had all but confirmed it.

  
 _And he brought Brian back_.


	2. Down upon my knees

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is proving to be a beast to write, so thanks to Emily for reading it over for me, and assuring me while it's painful, it's not terrible. I hope you all agree that it isn't terrible.

Will wasn't sleeping.

Mac could tell (because despite sometimes wishing desperately that she could turn it off, she knew him inside and out. Although it occurred to her lately that maybe she _didn't_ know him as well as she thought she did, because she hadn't predicted his reaction to her telling him about Brian, and she certainly _never_ thought he would bring Brian in to write the article. The Will she knew wouldn’t, _couldn’t_ , be that cruel).

Part of her was concerned as a friend (was that what they were? It didn't feel like it. It didn't feel like they were _anything_ ), and part of her was concerned because, _God help her_ , she still loved him (still wasn't the right word. Always, she probably _always_ would, and some days recognizing that gutted her, made her want to weep, because he was never going to love her back. That ship had sailed, and it was becoming harder and harder not to accept that reality).

She wasn't sure _why_ he wasn't sleeping, although if she had to take a guess it probably had to do with the article. He always had taken criticism hard. It was insult added to injury that it was _Brian_ who had been the one to tear down everything they were trying to do. But she had no sympathy there, because Will had been the one to bring him in. Will had made that choice, and she wasn't an idiot. He had done it to hurt her.

What she couldn't understand was _why_ Will wanted to hurt her. They had been getting along _so much better_. They were laughing and joking and it had felt a lot like _before_ , and then...then she wasn't sure what happened.

Will seemed nervous in the aftermath of the Bin Laden broadcast, and then he turned cold. Distant. His answers to her were short and his tone sharp, and he'd rush out of the office so fast after a broadcast that it made her head spin. It was as if he couldn’t stand to be around her.

And then he brought in Brian.

_Brian._

MacKenzie had really hoped never to lay eyes on Brian Brenner again. And Will, _of all people_ , brought him back into her life.

There were things that Will didn't know. That she hadn’t known how to tell him. Back before, when they were together, she had been so hesitant to bring up any part of her past relationship with Brian at all, afraid that if she started, the words would spill out and she wouldn’t be able to stop it. She would tell him about how she hadn't realized how serious Will was about her in the beginning and that she had made a huge mistake, but there was something about Brian, something about the way _she_ was when she was with Brian. He was like a magnet pulling her back in, and she was weak and stupid and she went back to him, but then it stopped, it _all_ stopped, when she realized how much she was in love with Will.

Those words haunted her, until she realized she couldn't be happy with Will until she told him, clean slate, but she never thought, _never_ , that he would react the way that he did. That he wouldn't let her explain. It had never crossed her mind as a possibility, so she hadn’t prepared for it. It knocked her sideways, and it had taken miles and miles and many years to be able to come back here and face him again.

But Will didn’t know about how bad it was with Brian. About how she wasn’t proud of the person she was when Brian was around. And she couldn't hold things against Will that he couldn't possibly know.

So he didn't know, because she had never told him, about the fights, loud and explosive, and the way that fear would pool in her stomach when Brian's face turned red and he stalked towards her.

Mac hadn’t told _anyone_ all of the awful details. Jim had heard some, things that had slipped out when they were sharing bottles of contraband whiskey and admitting things in the darkness that they might not have admitted in the daylight. And Jim was a smart guy, he had slid the pieces into place, filled in details that Mac had purposefully left blank, read between the lines.

Mac’s friends knew some, but not all. Molly had the unfortunate task of picking Mac from the emergency room the night she ended up with a concussion and a broken ankle. Mac had “fallen down the steps.” She told that story so many times, and with such sincerity, that she began to believe it herself.

But Molly never had.

Molly had rushed into the ER that night, made a beeline straight for the exam room where Mac was being patched up, and Mac could see the anger radiating from her, but Molly was gentle when she took Mac’s hand and breathed, “Oh, _Mac_ ” in a sad voice that made Mac bite back a sob.

“It’s not what you think,” Mac said immediately, and Molly didn’t say anything, just held her hand as the doctor set her ankle, fury and sadness mixed together and etched into her face.

But she could still be angry, infuriated, that he would bring Brian in at _all._ It didn’t matter that he didn’t know how bad her relationship with Brian was. He brought Brian in to make her uncomfortable, as a power play, to show her that he could.

And she _was_ mad. But she was also worried.

Because Will wasn’t sleeping.

And just, fuck Brian. Mac was convinced that Brian had written what he had written just because he _could_. He wasn’t ever going to write a nice word about either Will or Mac or what they were trying to do. That was _never_ going to happen, and Will had to have known that. It was a power play on his part, to one up Will, because they were both still competing in some awful, juvenile way (for her? Or just against each other, she wasn’t sure, and she didn’t think it mattered really), and the person who was going to end up losing the most was Mac.

And now Will wasn’t sleeping, and Mac wasn’t sure what to do about it.

She could approach him as his executive producer. Tell him that makeup was having a hard time covering the dark circles under his eyes (true), or that he was slurring his words slightly (also true). She could approach him as a friend. Tell him she was worried about him (true), and that he shouldn’t take Brian’s words to heart quite as much (also true). She wasn’t sure which approach would be more effective, but it didn’t really matter. She couldn’t go to him as a friend, because they weren’t. They _weren’t_ friends.

So instead she just worried. Will stumbled into the office, his eyes rimmed red from sleepless nights, and she swallowed words like, “ _Are you okay_?” and “ _Want to talk about it_?” because the answer to both was very clearly no.

She worried as he snapped at the staffers; he bit off Tess’s head during one of the rundown meetings, his voice rising so rapidly and with such vehemence that Tess had blinked back tears. She worried as he poured drinks with Charlie in his office, knocking them back at a rate that surprised her (Will was many things, but a heavy drinker was not one of them. The apple had fallen pretty far from that particular tree, although Mac had never been able to tell if that was by fate or design). She worried as he became withdrawn and sullen.

(And it was strange, but sometimes she’d catch him looking at her with an expression that she couldn’t quite read. It looked almost like pity with a hint of guilt, and she had no idea what that was about. When she’d catch his eye, he’d turn away immediately.)

Something was going on, and Mac didn’t know what it was, but she knew it wasn’t good.

Just...fuck Brian Brenner.

(She _had_ , that was the whole problem.)

* * *

Will wasn't sleeping.

He couldn't.

When he closed his eyes he saw MacKenzie and Brian.

But not like he had before. Not when the idea of the two of them haunted him, when he would think about them, together, in her bed. The same bed where _he_ and Mac would lay on lazy Sunday mornings. The same bed where Will would trace his fingers along Mac's bare back, drawing gentle circles into her skin. The same bed where he would bring her coffee and her eyes would light up, her voice hoarse and warm with sleep and disuse as she told him, “I love you, you wonderful man.”

This was different.

What he saw when he closed his eyes was a battered and bruised Mac, sitting in the emergency room waiting for Molly to arrive, her eye swollen shut, and her lip bloody. He saw Brian's hands tight around her wrists, as he backed her into a wall. Molly hadn't been forthcoming with the details so Will's very overactive imagination had to fill in the blanks. And fill them in he had.

Molly wouldn't answer his phone calls. He had tried. Tried calling her over and over, left message after message.

“Call me back, please."

“Molly, please, I need to know what happened.”

She had finally called back after the fourth or fifth of these, her voice terse.

“Stop calling me, Will. I should have never called you. I was just _so_ angry with you, and I wasn't thinking straight. Mac would kill me if she knew I called you.”

“I need you to tell me what happened, all of the details,” he told her firmly, lighting a cigarette and leaning back in the chair on his balcony.

“You wouldn't hear her out,” Molly reminded him. “You wouldn't let her explain. You didn't want to know anything _then_ , so sorry, you don't get to know anything _now_.”

That was that. Will hadn't been able to get anything more out of her.

He suspected that Jim knew, at least some, but he wasn't stupid enough to think that Jim would betray Mac's trust to tell him.

Jim was loyal to MacKenzie to a fault.

So, Jim was out, and Molly wouldn't talk to him, and so he was left to make his own deductions.

And he wasn't sleeping.

So he had begun to self-medicate. He was so tired, his whole body exhausted, but his mind racing as soon as he closed his eyes. But if he took something, washed it down with a scotch on the rocks, he was able to get a few hours of fitful sleep.

It was awful.

And he had done this. He had brought Brian back in. He had done it to stick it to Mac because she hurt him, because she hadn’t answered his call, and hadn’t respond to his voicemail. He was embarrassed and hurt and he had lashed out, acting without thinking about anything but how fucking _stupid_ he felt after having put it out there in vain for MacKenzie. It was a mistake, bringing Brian in, but Will had done it impulsively and then he couldn’t back down.

He had done this.

Scotch helped. It burned going down, but it helped to turn off his brain as he stared at the ceiling at night, thinking what Molly had said, and remembering things that Mac had said in passing, comments that had made him think twice but that he never asked about.

Scotch helped, but not enough. None of it was enough. None of it washed the image of Brian hurting MacKenzie from his mind.

It was no wonder he couldn't sleep.


	3. And some fight you gave

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Both Emilys deserve a pat on the back for helping me work through this chapter. And I think for inflicting this much emotional pain on everyone, I probably owe each of you a cookie or a beer. Maybe even both.

It was mistake. A slip of the tongue.

Will hadn't meant to let it slip that Molly had called him, but lately any interaction with Mac had him imbalanced.

It was _Mac_ who had brought Molly up in the first place. They were in his office talking about a story (it wasn't as if they had talked about anything _other_ than work in days, but he knew that was on him. He just couldn’t be around her. He couldn’t be around her without thinking about Molly’s words, without thinking about things he’d rather not think about), and Mac said something about her friend at the FBI.

“Molly,” Mac said. “Do you remember Molly?”

Will wasn't sure why it came out, but it had. He blamed exhaustion. He hadn't had a solid night's sleep in what felt like ages. He wasn’t thinking clearly.

“Of course I remember Molly, she actually called me the other day.” Mac's head whipped around to meet his eyes and he knew he had fucked up.

“Why?” Mac's eyes narrowed. “Why would she call you?”

“Oh, it was...” He was fucked, because there was no reason that Molly should have been calling him. None. “Brian,” he admitted. “She called after the article about Brian.” Mac blanched, and there was a tense moment of silence before she spoke.

“What did Molly tell you?” Mac asked.

“It's okay, Mac, I didn't ask...”

“ _What did Molly tell you_?” Mac asked again, her voice rising. “It's not true, what Molly said, it's _not_ true. She doesn't...”

“She wouldn't tell me much,” Will interrupted her, trying to gain back some control of the conversation. “She implied...”

“What?” It was Mac's turn to interrupt. “What did she imply?”

“She mentioned having to pick you up at the emergency room,” he started, and Mac shook her head vehemently.

“That's not...listen, I tripped and fell down the stairs, you know how clumsy I am,” she waved her hand in the air, waving away his concerns, her attitude flippant. As if she pretended it wasn’t a big deal, it wouldn’t be a big deal.

_I tripped and fell down the stairs._

Will understood, unfortunately, the need to protect yourself. To lie. _You've got it all wrong. It's not what you think._ In the immediate aftermath, it was about fear, wary of making things worse. And then, over time it was about rewriting history a little bit, just a _little_ , so that you could keep going, so that you weren’t weighed down by it all. And sometimes, he knew, if you told yourself something enough times, you might even start to believe it.

He understood (and oh God, this was something he had _never_ thought they would have in common. He had never wanted to share this with her. Never). But he also couldn't control the wave of fury that rushed over him when he thought of Brian hurting her so badly that she ended up in the emergency room, and then felt, whether out of fear or embarrassment, the need to lie about it. _Still_ lie about it. All these years later.

“Fuck that,” Will exploded. “You are many things, but you are _not_ clumsy. I'm not buying that. I'm not buying that for one minute.”

“Yeah, well, I don't need you to _buy_ it,” Mac's face was flushed with anger, her hands on her hips, as she stared him down in defiance. “It's the goddamn truth.”

“MacKenzie,” he tried to keep his voice level, told himself to check his anger. He swallowed his frustration with her, and came around to the other side of his desk, coming towards where she was standing, her arms wrapped defensively around herself. “Molly...”

“Are you not _listening_ to me?” Mac yelled. “I said Molly didn't know what the fuck she's talking about!”

“She _does_ know what the fuck she's talking about Mac!” So much for trying to keep his anger in check. But he couldn't help thinking about Brian hurting Mac. He kept thinking about how _he_ brought Brian back in here. He was angry. He was so fucking angry. At himself, at Brian, so angry that he couldn't think straight.

“I'm not going to argue with you about this,” Mac insisted. “I'm telling you that Molly doesn't know what she's talking about, and she shouldn't have called you.”

“Why would she lie about that, Mac?” He demanded. Mac shook her head, the conversation was effectively over as far as she was concerned.

“I have to go,” she muttered. “Molly had _no_ right, and I have to go.”

Will reached for her, to stop her from leaving in the state that she was in, to stop her from leaving before they _talked about this_ , and she flinched.

Mac flinched.

It was small, but he caught it. Even in his haze of anger, he caught her flinch as his hand darted out.

She flinched.

Jesus. _Jesus_.

He had harbored a small hope that Molly had exaggerated. That she had taken something and blown it out of proportion. Will felt sick and Mac looked stricken.

“I have to go,” she repeated again, her voice just shy of hysteria.

This time he didn't try to stop her.

* * *

 

The ringing of the phone in the middle of the night would have woken her up if she hadn't already been awake, still at her desk at work. She was exhausted, but she knew better than to pretend that she would be able to sleep.

It had been days since she and Will had fought in his office. They had communicated sparingly in aftermath, avoiding each other, passing messages through Jim and Maggie and Tess. Pretending like nothing had happened, when everyone knew something had.

It infuriated her, just thinking about Molly calling up Will, it infuriated her, and, if she was being honest, it embarrassed her.

It was not a time period she was proud of. She didn’t like who she was when she was with Brian. She didn’t like to think about it too often.

And she hated that Molly called Will.

“I’m sorry,” Molly had apologized immediately when Mac called her up to ask her what the hell she was thinking calling Will. “I wasn’t thinking. I was just so mad at him. I’m sorry. I really am, Mac.”

Mac had let out a shaky sigh on the phone.

“I’m _so_ mad at you,” she admitted to Molly.

“Good, _good_ ,” Molly had replied. “It’s about fucking time you got mad.”

Mac had been spending late nights in the office since, burying herself in work so that she wouldn’t have to go home to an empty apartment with nothing but her thoughts to keep her company.

The ringing of the phone didn’t wake her up, but it did startle her, as she glanced at the clock with bleary eyes.

Mac reached for the phone perched on the corner of her desk, and frowned at Lonny's name on her screen.

"Hello?" She was genuinely confused as to why he might be calling her.

"Mac? I'm sorry to be calling so late, but have you heard from Will at all tonight?" Lonny asked, and Mac's stomach flipped.

"No," she gripped the phone so hard that it was starting to hurt. Will had hurried out of the office after the broadcast, which didn’t surprise her considering she had hurried into her own office as soon as they went off the air, closing her door and making sure she was hidden away until she knew he was gone.

There used to be phone calls. Will would call, or she would call, under the guise of discussing what they did right or wrong (depending on the night) in the broadcast.

There hadn't been a phone call in quite some time. Even before Molly called.

So Mac had not been surprised that she hadn't heard from Will that night. She would have been more surprised if she _had_.

“He's just...uh, well he isn't answering his phone,” Lonny admitted, and she could picture his eyebrows sloping down in concern (or maybe anger. Will was most likely the biggest pain in the ass client Lonny had ever had. Considering he cared very little about his own personal safety. And Jesus, that scared her. That he cared _so little_ about his personal safety. Because she cared, _fuck_ , did she care.) “I drop him off, but usually he checks in to let me know that he's in for the night, and I haven't heard from him.”

Mac straightened up in her chair, her breathing quickening.

 _Calm down_ , she told herself. _He's probably just sleeping. It's late. Most people are sleeping. It's probably nothing._

“I'm going to head over there to check on him,” Lonny explained, and Mac was already out of her chair, moving through the nearly empty newsroom.

“I'm coming,” she told him firmly. “I'll meet you over there.” She punched the elevator button, and then bit down hard on her lip.

 _He’s fine_ , she tried to convince herself. (She was doing a lousy job at convincing herself. She had no way to know if he was fine or not, they hadn’t spoken in _days_ ).

It was an endless elevator ride, followed by an endless cab ride. Lonny was waiting for her in the lobby with the night guard from Will’s building. She hugged her arms around herself as Lonny guided her toward Will’s elevator.

“He’s probably asleep and just forgot,” Lonny reassured. “Idiot.”

“Does he do that a lot?” Mac asked, before he could stop himself, she saw Lonny flinch, and she swallowed hard. “Right.” The doors slid open and Mac rushed off, calling out Will’s name, her heart in her throat.

“Wait,” Lonny’s voice stopped in her in her tracks, but nothing prepared her for the image of the blood on Lonny’s fingertip.

 _Will's. It's Will's blood_ , she thought. _Oh fuck. Oh fuck fuck fuck._

Lonny lead the way into the bathroom where she got her first glimpse of Will's body crumpled on the floor, blood on his t-shirt, and dripping down the corners of his mouth.

“Billy!” She dropped to her knees. “Oh _Billy_!” She can hear the panic in her own voice, the fear.

“Call 911,” Lonny barked, and the guard nodded, stumbling backwards out of the room. He glanced up at Mac's pale, terrified face. “Mac?” She barely heard him over the buzzing in her ears. “Mac! Listen to me, he's breathing, okay? It's going to be okay. Okay? It's going to be okay. Breathe? Yeah?” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “That a girl. Good.” Mac took another deep breath, willed herself to calm down.

She could feel her heart pounding, and she took another breath. And then another. She could taste adrenaline in her mouth, and she swallowed hard.

“Oh Billy,” she murmured, leaning forward and brushing the hair off his forehead. “What have you done?”

* * *

Effexor mixed with Naproxen, washed down with scotch.

Rinse, lather, repeat.

(For how long? She wasn’t sure, but long enough to cause a bleeding stomach ulcer. Long enough to land him here. Longer than just since their fight in his office.)

Mac wasn't sure if she was furious with Will, or scared shitless.

Both. She was both.

Charlie had only left a few minutes before, excusing himself to get to the office to explain why Elliott was going to go on the air tonight instead of Will.

Charlie had hung around with Mac as they waited for Will to be admitted, his arm around Mac's shoulders as she sat in the hard backed waiting room chairs, her mind racing.

“What was he thinking?” She kept asking. “What in the _fuck_ was he thinking?”

“I think he was trying not to think, kiddo,” Charlie muttered. “I think that was the point.”

The sun was starting to rise as she settled down into the chair next to his bed, and she kept herself calm by watching the rise and fall of his chest.

“You're an idiot,” she told him in a low voice. “I hope you can hear me. I hope you know just how much of a selfish, fucking _idiot_ I think you are. What in the fuck were you _doing_? What was going through your mind? Jesus, _fuck_ , Will! Were you trying to kill yourself?” Mac rubbed at her forehead in frustration, closing her eyes and breathing out heavily through her nose.

She wasn't sure what she expected. He remained asleep, his eyes closed, his breathing even, and she stood, bracing her hands against the window sill and tried to fight the panic that was starting to overwhelm her.

 _He's fine_ , she reminded herself. _We found him. We got him here. He's fine._

But he almost wasn't.

What if Lonny hadn’t insisted that Will check in at night? What if no one had thought to go looking for him? How long would it have taken for someone to realize he hadn't come into the office?

“Mac?” She startled when she heard the sound of the door open, and she whipped around to find Jim standing there, hands shoved into his pockets.

“What are you doing here?”

“Charlie told us that Will was admitted, but that he wasn't awake, wouldn't be for a while, and I figured you'd probably been here all night,” Jim explained. “I'll sit here while you go home, shower, get something to eat and maybe try to sleep?”

“I won't be able to eat or sleep,” she admitted.

“Why don't you at least try?” Jim suggested. “I'll stay here. He's not going to be up for hours, Mac. Lonny's still here and said he'll drive you home.” She nodded, suddenly so exhausted that it took all of her energy to walk towards the door, stopping next to Jim and squeezing his arm.

“You're a good man, Charlie Brown,” she told him, brushing a kiss to his cheek.

Her legs felt heavy as she found Lonny half asleep in one of the unforgiving waiting room chairs, and she dropped down next to him.

“Can a girl get a ride home?” Mac asked, nudging him with her shoulder.

“You? Anytime,” he answered with a small smile.

“I'm guessing this goes beyond the usual job description,” she told him as they both staggered to their feet.

“Yeah, well, I should have known,” Lonny shrugged. “He seemed like he was going to be a real pain in the ass from the start.” Mac snorted, and nodded.

"He can be," she admitted. She felt herself sway from exhaustion, and Lonny placed a steadying hand on her arm as they made their way to the car.

"Hang in there, Mac," he said softly, opening the car door for her. She rested her head against the headrest and let out a deep sigh. The ride was mostly quiet, and when Lonny pulled up outside of her building, she started to slide out, and he reached out a gentle hand and she stopped and turned back around. “He doesn’t deserve you, you know that, right?”

Mac swallowed a sob, and nodded, not trusting herself to speak at that moment.

She managed to make it into her building, up to her apartment, the door shut firmly behind her, before she cracked, her breath catching as she sobbed.


	4. When you pushed me away from you

Will was still asleep when Mac slipped back into his hospital room.

Jim was reading, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration, and he startled when she cleared her throat.

“You haven't been gone long enough to have slept,” Jim noted as he closed the folder in his lap.

“I slept,” she argued.

“Not enough,” he shot back. Mac ignored him, moving toward the bed and glancing down at the sleeping man in it.

“Any changes?” She asked, her hand reaching out, her fingers itching to touch him, but she chickened out and instead smoothed her hand over his blanket.

“No, nothing, they said he'll probably wake up soon,” Jim said, standing so that Mac could sit down.

“Thanks for staying here,” she told Jim, turning in the chair slightly so she could look at Jim. He gave her shoulder a squeeze.

“I did it for _you_ ,” he replied, his tone pointed.

“I know,” she said softly, moving her gaze from Jim back to Will's still form.

“I'm going to get back to the office, unless you want me to stay with you? Keep you company?” Jim asked, and she shook her head.

“No, I'll be fine, you go back to work,” Mac insisted. Jim hesitated, shoving his hands into his pockets and rocking back slightly on his heels.

“I just don’t understand what was going through his head,” Jim looked over at Will, an unreadable expression on Jim’s face. Jim had a healthy amount of resentment towards Will. It had been Jim who had seen Mac at her most broken hearted, throwing herself headlong into danger to feel something other than sorrow. It had been Jim who had carried her bleeding body out of the riot, Will’s name on the tip of Mac’s tongue. It had been Jim who had been ready and willing to throw himself in Will’s line of fire in those first tense moments when they laid eyes on each other in the newsroom for the first time in years. (Jim also knew about Brian, knew about demons Mac carried with her that even Will didn’t know about. He knew Mac loved Will, but personally, Jim thought Will was a giant prick, undeserving of Mac’s love.)

“I don’t know,” Mac sighed. “We got into that fight and…”

“Bullshit,” Jim interrupted. “No matter what caused him to do this, it's on him. I know your guilt complex is second to none, and I just...” Jim breathed out heavily through his nose. “I don't want you to blame yourself. It's _not_ your fault.” She stood suddenly, wrapping her arms around Jim in a tight hug.

“I _know_ that, Jim,” she reassured him, pulling back enough to be able to look Jim in the eye. “I don't know what caused Will to pull something this idiotic, but I know that it's not my fault, okay?” Jim's eyes narrowed, a frown tugging at his lips.

Mac knew that Jim was worried for good reason, she did have a guilt complex that was second to none. Only that wasn't true. It was second to Will's. And she had a feeling that his guilt complex was what landed him in the hospital. Goddamn Molly and her big mouth. Mac hadn't wanted Will to find out the unpleasant details of her relationship with Brian, but Molly went and called him, and she knew Will well enough to know that he was torturing himself thinking about it.

But thinking about who she had been when she was with Brian, thinking about how she let him treat her, always made her feel stupid and small, and she was _angry_. With Will for bringing Brian back in and stirring up feelings that were better left ignored, and with Molly for calling Will and poking the bear, she was angry and she was embarrassed. If she had been less angry, less embarrassed, she might have tried to talk him out of his thoughts, get him out of his head, but she hadn't. She hadn't tried to help, and he had spiraled out of control. She knew that Jim wanted to hear her say that it wasn't her fault that Will had self medicated himself into the hospital, and it wasn't her fault. She did know that. She played a part, though, and she knew _that_ too.

But at the end of the day, Will was a grown man. He was a grown man who could make his own decisions. And she wasn’t entirely willing to forget that Will had brought Brian back into their lives. (And she still didn’t know why Will had done that. Why out of all of the journalists in the world did Will choose to bring Brian in? To be an asshole? To rub her mistakes in her face? She didn’t understand. She couldn’t understand.)

"Okay," Jim said after a moment. "If you need anything, call, all right?" She nodded, squeezing his arms as he turned to leave.

Mac dropped heavily back into the chair. It had been a very long night, and it didn't look like it was going to get better any time soon.

* * *

Will was aware of two things when he woke up. The first was that Mac was going to kill him, and the second was that, improbably, Mac was _there_ , staring him down with her mouth in a tight line.

"You're an idiot," she told him flatly. "Effexor and Naproxen? On top of which you decided to drown yourself in scotch? Did you do it on purpose?" He didn't answer. "God, Will, how could you be so, so..." She flailed her hands around, and then pinned them to her sides, biting down hard on her lip.

"Stupid?" He supplied.

"Selfish," she finished.

"Yeah, well, it's not like I did it on purpose," he muttered, hating the way she was looking at him, becoming defensive (becoming defensive was his default position. It was instinct. Don’t back down, don’t make apologies, just fight back harder and louder. A remnant of his childhood. Will would get defensive, but Mac would get quiet. Her anger was slow, simmering, white hot. It had always been more concerning when MacKenzie was quiet.)

"Didn't you?" Mac asked, her voice quiet. (And shit, here she was, quiet Mac. But this time he was pretty sure it was out of concern and not anger. Although, admittedly, it was probably out of both.)

"Of course not," he scoffed. One look at her told him that she didn't completely believe him. "Of _course_ not."

"What was this about, Will?" Mac asked, wrapping her arms around herself. "Was this about Brian's stupid fucking article? Or...was this about me?" She swallowed hard. "Was this about what Molly told you?"

She had the nail on the head, and Will thought about denying it, but that seemed pointless now. They both knew that he knew about Brian, and even though she might not love him anymore, they both knew he loved her still (he would never admit to her that her failure to respond to his voicemail had also played a part in it all. Seeing as he told her never to mention it again, _he_ certainly wasn't going to ever mention it again.)

He made a noise that was neither an agreement or disagreement, and Mac dropped wearily into the chair next to his bed.

"She shouldn't have told you about that," she said after a long pause. But there was no fire in her voice, only resignation.

"She didn't tell me much, I told you that."

"And you've had to fill in the blanks?" Mac knew the answer before asking the question. She was all too aware of Will's ability to cast doom and gloom onto situations that didn't really call for it. She was sure he had imagined the worst (and to be fair, it wasn't _good_. Some of it she had blocked out, successfully and for self-preservation purposes. His imagination didn't need to go too far in order to correctly guess.)

"Yeah," Will said, tipping his head back and closing his eyes.

"You're an idiot, why wouldn't you have just _talked_ to me instead of doing this to yourself?"

"Because talking about it went so well the first time!" He shot back. That was enough to stop her, take the wind out of her sails, as she slumped back in her chair.

"I..." Mac paused, seeming to gather her words. She wouldn't look at him. "I didn't want you to know about it. Any of it."

"Yeah, I got that," he muttered.

“Part of it was embarrassment. That was partly why I didn’t tell you,” she admitted, finally turning to look at him. “It’s not...I’m not proud of my relationship with Brian. It was a mistake. _All_ of it.”

“You shouldn’t be embarrassed,” Will said softly. “ _He_ should be embarrassed.”

“I stayed,” Mac answered, her voice just as soft. “And I went back. I was _such_ a fucking idiot.”

“You’re not an idiot,” Will replied, his hand itching to reach out and take hers. She was right there, within touch, he just had to lift his hand and reach a little, and he could brush the hair off her face, he could tangle their fingers together.

But she didn’t love him anymore, she didn't feel the same way, so he had no right to try to comfort her. When he thought about leaving the voicemail, and her not responding, a red hot bolt of shame shot up through him.

"I stayed," Mac repeated, her voice breaking a little. She bit down hard on her lip.

"Hey," Will said, and this time he did reach out, placed his hand gently on hers. His hand dwarfed hers, she was so strong and bullheaded that sometimes he forgot how much bigger physically he was than her. How he could fit his hand around her tiny wrists, how he easily he could bully her, strong arm her.

Brian, too. He realized. Brian could, and Brian _had_.

"You're not an idiot," Will repeated.

"I did everything wrong," Mac murmured.

"No," Will was vehement. "Except for the things you did wrong, you did everything right." He froze.

"Will?" Mac was giving him and odd look, but Will was having a hard time catching up to his racing thoughts.

Except for everything she did wrong, she did everything right.

The rest was _him_.

But it didn't matter. Because she didn't feel the same way about him anymore. That ship had sailed, he had let it. How long had he really thought she would wait? Had he thought she would just pine away for him indefinitely?

Except for Brian, she had done everything right.

The rest was him.

Well, fuck.


	5. And in the morning when you're turning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was brought you by a potential snowstorm, Emily C's mildly inebriated encouragement, Emily W. and Clare's posting of incredible, but heartbreaking, stories, and Fleetwood Mac (don't question it). Thanks for hanging in there, gang. I'm pleased to tell you that this is not quite as horribly painful as previous chapters.

 Will was a selfish prick.

 He knew that.

 He wanted MacKenzie next to his bed, even if he knew she was there out of obligation, out of guilt maybe even. Not out of love. Certainly not out of love. He knew that a better man, a less selfish son of a bitch, would tell her that she should go home, get some sleep, point out that they _weren't_ together and that she didn't have to stay there with him.

 But he _wasn't_ a good man. (Hadn't he proved that? Hadn't he proved just what an asshole he was?) So she stayed.

 They didn't talk much about Brian after Mac had wept with her head pillowed on her hands on his hospital bed, Will awkwardly trying to comfort her, his fingers, clumsy and too big, carding through her soft hair.

Her voice halting, she filled in some of the details. How her relationship with Brian had slipped out of her control, how it wasn't often, but _sometimes_ \--when he had been drinking, when the work had slowed, when they had gotten into all out battles about something or another, he would grab her wrist too tightly, push her back too forcefully. She told him about the night she had to call Molly from the hospital.

“It only happened once,” Mac explained, studiously avoiding his gaze. “I know, okay, I _know_ that once is one time too many.” She shrugged, and then looked down, tears slipping off her lashes. “It was mostly words. He had a way with words.” She let out a bitter laugh that Will didn't recognize and didn't like. “It was subtle, well done, but he always made me feel like I was...less than what I was. Less intelligent, less capable, just _less_.”

She had calmed down, straightened up, and said in a quiet, but firm, voice, “I'd rather not talk about it again. And I really don't want anyone else to know.”

That had been that. At the very least, Will could respect her wishes in that regard. They hadn't talked about it again.

But between the article, decrying everything they stood for, and his guilt about bringing Brian in to write it, Will had become unmoored.

“I'm not coming back,” he told MacKenzie, who had, unsurprisingly, not taken it well.

“You're coming back if I have to chop you into pieces and reassemble you at the the desk,” she threatened.

But he couldn't. He couldn't.

Because Brian was right; he was a fool.

* * *

Will played the YouTube video of the panel at Northwestern again and again when Mac wasn't parked in his room, continuing her campaign to get him to come back. He wasn’t fooling anyone. He should have quit after that colossal embarrassment, he just made himself look worse pretending to be a serious newsman in the style of Murrow or Cronkite. The only who didn’t realize it was MacKenzie.

Of all people, she should understand the need to put some distance between yourself and your mistakes.

He wouldn't go all the way to Pakistan, but he couldn't stay _here._

And it didn't matter, not really, because Leona and Reese Lansing had finally found something to stick. The last nail in the coffin. Even if he wanted to come back (he _couldn't_ ), he wouldn't be able to.

So it didn't matter what Charlie said, how many nurses he brought in front of Will to tell him about their aunts, and it didn't matter how many aunts, good, civic-minded citizens, were denied the right to vote, Will wasn't going back.

Except.

It wasn't right. What was happening to Dorothy Cooper. And there was a spark in Mac's eyes, something that hadn't been there in a while, the same one that made him fall in love with her, the same one that had appeared when he told her to throw out the rundown.

He wasn't done. _They_ weren't done. He owed it to her to stay. To at least _try_ to stay.

If she could come back, after miles and war zones and stabbings and years, if she could be that brave, he could stay.

How had Nina Howard known that he had been high that night? No one on the staff would have said a word.

“The voicemail message,” Will said softly to Mac. The fucking voicemail.

“What are you talking about?” Mac looked genuinely confused, and part of Will appreciated her discretion in front of Charlie, that she was keeping her promise to never talk of it again. It _hurt,_ of course. It hurt like hell.

She really didn’t love him anymore.

“The voicemail message that I left you that night after I got home from the Bin Laden broadcast, did you play it for anyone?” He couldn't imagine that she would have, not MacKenzie, she wasn't that deliberately cruel (no, that was him), but a tiny part of him, an awful part of him had a disloyal image of her playing it for someone--he couldn't let himself think that it might be another man, that they would be listening to Will with his heart hanging out on his sleeve, laughing at how silly and pathetic he was. That Mac had not been alone when he called and that was the reason she hadn't answered.

“I never got a message,” Mac maintained, the confusion still written clearly on her face.

“No,” he sighed. He didn't want to do this, and he certainly didn't to have to do this in front of Charlie. Not when Charlie still harbored such dangerous hope of a reunion between he and Mac. “I, I left you that message that started, 'Hey listen it's me, I'm not just saying this because I'm high right now,' did anyone else hear that message?”

Will would _not_ repeat the whole message. That was where he drew the fucking line.

“I didn't hear that message,” she insisted.

“Mac, there's no way you don't remember what that message said.” Was she getting declarations of love from suitors left and fucking right? Was his so unremarkable?

“It wouldn't be possible for me to remember what it said, because I never got it, and it wouldn't have been possible for me to play it for someone else because I never got it,” she enunciated each word clearly, and Will felt the first stirrings of hope. How in the world had she not heard the message?

Will knew he had called the right number. He had that number memorized front and back, despite an impressive, and futile, attempt to forget everything about MacKenzie McHale.

(His phone would ring in those first few days after she told him about Brian. He had deleted her name, but he knew as soon as he saw the number that it was her. He got so angry that he threw his phone across the room; it hit against a wall and splintered into a million pieces. By the time he got a new phone, she was on a plane out of the country and her number didn't flash across his screen for three more years.)

“Nina's first source was you,” Charlie spoke up, and Will raised his eyes to meet Charlie's.

“Yeah.” Will's head was spinning, but the pieces were beginning to slot into place. Nina's first source was him, and more importantly, _Mac had never heard the message_.

She had never heard the message. She hadn't ignored it because she didn't feel the same way, she had ignored it because she didn't know she wasn't supposed to. She didn't know it existed.

He had been embarrassed, hurt, and then _angry_ in that order when Mac hadn't mentioned it in the days following the Bin Laden broadcast.

And then he brought in Brian Brenner. To get back at her. To make her embarrassed, and hurt, and angry.

Brian fucking Brenner.

Will had done that. Brought him in to fuck with Mac. Because she had failed to feel the same way about him that he felt about her.

It had been childish and stupid and small.

It had been a retaliation; a reaction to her inaction.

It had been for _nothing_. He had done it for absolutely no reason. He had hurt her like that, trotted Brian out, and she had done _nothing_ to deserve it (even before, even before he knew about how Brian treated her, before he knew that Mac hadn’t heard the message, he knew that Mac hadn’t deserved to be punished for not loving him back. That was unfair. But he hadn’t been thinking clearly, hadn’t been thinking at _all_ , and he had lashed out. Hit back harder, like he had been taught to do).

“Guys, I don't unders...” Mac tried, and Charlie interrupted her,

“That's why TMI is waiting for a second source. They can't reveal how they got the first.”

“There was no message!” Mac exclaimed, looking at both of them like they were out of their minds.

_She never heard it._

“Because your phone was hacked, and they deleted it,” Charlie explained, and the wind was knocked out of Mac's sails.

Will could take this one of two ways. He could look at this one of two ways. He could focus on the fact that he had now brutally hurt MacKenzie for a discretion that she had not committed. That in his attempts to even out the scales, tip the balance in his favor, he had done the opposite. The scales were so heavily tipped in her favor that he could live until he was three thousand and still not be anywhere near done making it up to her.

Will could focus on the negative, and he was _good_ at that. Good at looking at things with the glass half empty, waiting for the other shoe to drop. That was a special skill set of his.

But there was another way to look at this.

He could see it as a chance to wipe the slate clean.

She had never heard the message. She didn't have to know that he had to heavily drug himself in order to wade through the layers of bullshit and understand that he loved her, he would always love her. She didn't have to know that he had brought in Brian as a punishment for her rejection of the words that spilled out of him, _I'm not just saying this_ _because I'm high_ (when of course he was saying it because he was high. It was the only way he could). She didn't have to know that he was capable of that kind of calculating malice.

He could start again. Could start building a better version of himself from scratch. Someone who was worthy of MacKenzie.

_She never heard the message._

Will 2.0.

He grabbed the wires and began to pull them out, wincing, as Mac, still not entirely sure what was happening, hovered around him.

“What are you doing?” Mac cried out as he threw his legs over the side of the bed. Will ignored her as he quoted Don Quixote, catching Charlie's smirk.

He would go back to work. He'd do it because of MacKenzie, _for_ MacKenzie. He'd be the anchor, the _man_ , she thought he was. He would make her proud.

Except for the thing she had done wrong, she had done everything right. And Will hadn't.

But he could start.


	6. I'll be far to sea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just one more to go after this! Thanks for hanging in there! One more giant thank you to both Emilys. You guys da best.

It wasn't until much later that she remembered about the message.

When they returned to the office, and for the next few days, she was too caught up in the whirlwind of the story to really think about it. Mac's focus was laser like when it involved something she felt particularly passionate about, and Dorothy Cooper's story was so outrageous that her righteous indignation crowded out nearly everything else.

She was also riding the high of chasing an important story. Things were finally better, finally starting to fall back into place.

Brian was gone. Will was back and fully committed to what they were doing. They hadn't talked again about Brian, and she was cautiously hopeful that it was water under the bridge. It was incredibly, unexpectedly, possible that she might have nudged the scales ever so slightly in her favor (she knew that she had a long way to go, a lot to atone for, but it felt like _something_ had shifted. Ever so slightly).

It took the meeting with Reese and Leona Lansing to make her remember at _all_ about the message, and it wasn’t until right before the show that it occurred to her that she never asked what it had said.

Whatever the message had said _had_ to have been important if Will was convinced there was no way that Mac would have forgotten what it had said. _There's no way you don't_ _remember_. Those had been his exact words.

She stopped mid-sentence, most assuredly confusing the hell out of Herb and Joey, and walked out of the door and down the hall to the studio.

"What was the rest of the message?” Mac asked, sweetly at first, her head tilted, her lilting voice gentle and persuading. She noticed that Will straightened in his chair, and a look of panic ghosted across his face.

“What?” Will was a _terrible_ fucking liar.

“'I'm not just saying this because I'm high'...saying what? What was the rest of the message?” She pressed.

“Hmm.” That was the single _most_ infuriating response; she took a deep breath and fought the urge to strangle him (despite the fact that she loved him with every ounce of her being, there were often times that she wondered why she had fallen irrevocably in love with such a frustrating man).

“What was the rest of the message?” Mac pushed a little harder.

“Ten seconds,” came the warning from the control room. Mac didn't move.

“Ten seconds,” Will pointed out. Mac stood her ground, staring him down. He stared right back. She finally rolled her eyes, stepping away from the desk just as the red light came on.

He thought he won, but Mac knew better. She was nothing if not persistent. And the fact that he had been so adamant that had she heard it, she would have remembered it, meant that it was _worth_ remembering. She didn't dare let herself get her hopes up too high, but it had to be something that Will could have only said to her if he was high.

It had to be important. And she wasn't about to let it drop.

When the broadcast ended, she raced to catch up to Will before he closed himself in his office. She knew him. Knew that he was going to try to make his escape. And she'd be damned if she let this drop. After everything he put her through lately? Brian? The overdose? He goddamn _owed_ this to her.

She caught up just in time, quickening her steps to be right next to him.

“What did the rest of the message say?” She asked, her voice firmer this time.

“I honestly don't remember.” _Bullshit_ , she felt like saying. _There's no way you don't remember_. She could throw his words right back at him.

She squared her shoulders and changed her tactic. She would get no where with him when he was like this. This was a closed off Will. This was a Will who would not budge. This Will had made his mind up about something, and it was an exercise in futility to try to get him to change it at the moment.

Not that she wouldn't try again. Because she would.

_There's no way you don't remember._

It was important. Whatever it was. (She would _not_ get her hopes up.)

“Did you that Maggie and Don are moving in together, even though Maggie should be with Jim and Don should be with Sloan?” Mac asked, following him into his office, changing the subject to something she knew Will would want to talk about even _less_ than he would want to talk about the voicemail.

“How many lives must you ruin before you get out of the life ruining business?” Will shot back at her.

“It's a cautionary tale, Maggie is now with the wrong man!” Mac exclaimed. She saw a lot of herself in Maggie, and she hated to see Maggie make the same stupid mistakes she had.

Don was a mistake. Not the same level of mistake as Brian had been, but he still was a mistake. And Maggie was setting herself-- not to mention Don and Jim and Sloan--up for a world of hurt by moving forward with Don. 

“It's not going to last,” Will dismissed, and Mac raised an eyebrow.

“Because true love always wins?” She asked, and she was aware that they were inching into very interesting territory.

“Yeah,” Will looked at her, looked at her hard, and then sighed slightly, “It was a hallucination. I got asked the question at Northwestern, 'What makes America the greatest country in the world?' There was a woman who looked like you sitting in the audience. There were a lot of lights, a lot of noise in my head,” Mac's heart stopped. They had never talked about Northwestern. She had assumed he just hadn't seen her in the audience, since he never mentioned it to her (and he would have mentioned it, if she had been the reason that he had gone on that diatribe, she was _sure_ he would have said something. Especially in those first, few, tense weeks when she thought he was going to fire her every Friday). She flipped through her notepad to find the pages. “and I could have sworn the woman who looked like you was holding up a pad.” He drew out the words as Mac triumphantly held up the words.

_It's not. But it can be._

“It was you,” Will looked stunned, and Mac couldn't help the smile that tugged at her lips.

“Yeah.” She hadn't been able to stop herself from producing. It was frustrating as hell to watch him be the affable guy, the guy who never stepped on someone else's toes, when she knew that he was capable of so much more.

“It was _you_!” Will repeated.

“Yep,” she bit her lip to stop from smiling. There were few things that made sense like her producing Will. Nothing felt more comfortable, or _right_ , than her in Will's ear. She was good at it. _They_ were good at it. “You're melting now aren't you. Your heart is full. Just say what you're feeling.”

The air had a spark in in, and they were close, dangerously close to one another. She could lean forward just a little and press her lips to his. She could feel his breath, warm on her face. He brought his hands up and for a heartstopping moment she thought he was going to frame her face in his hands, just like he used to. Frame her face and press a searing kiss to her lips.

“Why the _fuck_ didn't you tell me?”

Well. That was not what she had been expecting.

“I was waiting for the right time!” She exclaimed.

“18 months ago was the right time! It was you!” Will accused, and she knew what he was thinking. He was thinking of the bruising his reputation had taken. He was thinking about his high ratings before she came sweeping back in.

“No, it was _you_ , Billy, I was just producing,” Mac argued, and then she paused and figured she was in for a penny, in for a pound. “What did the rest of the message say?”

Will didn't answer. Instead he brought his hands up, and this time he did frame her face in his hands, and then his lips were on hers, hot and desperate, and she couldn't think. Her head was full of white noise as she brought her hands around his waist, pulling him closer.

"I'm not just saying this because I'm high," he pulled back and his smile was so wide that she felt like she could fall into it. "I've never stopped loving you.”

And before he could say anything else, she had covered his mouth with hers, and she wouldn't think about anything else. She wouldn't allow herself to think about anything, but his hands cradling her face, the feel of him, solid and warm, under her hands, his mouth on hers, and just Will, filling her up, up, _up_ until she was so full that she felt like she might burst.

* * *

Will had not planned on telling her what the message said.

He knew that the message belonged to her. They were words meant for her to hear, and he promised himself that he would tell her.

But not yet.

Because there was too much he had to atone for first. There was too much ground to cover.

He played dumb about the message, but she was too smart for that to work for too long.

_There's no way you don't remember._

Mac was nothing if not persistent, and he knew that she was going to be like a dog with a bone (she must have known it was important. She must have known that it was something that he had only been able to say high as a fucking kite). But he wasn't ready to tell her.

He should have known, as always was the case when he was dealing with MacKenzie McHale, that nothing was as simple as he thought it was going to be. The best laid plans and all of that nonsense.

She was at Northwestern. She had been in the audience. It had been her holding up that sign.

_It's not. But it can be._

It wasn't as if, when he was being honest with himself, he regretted that speech at Northwestern. It turned everything on its head; it shook his world, but his world had desperately _needed_ to be shaken. He was a miserable son of a bitch until MacKenzie came sweeping back in his life, with her idealism and unshakable belief in him. But it _had_ shaken his world up. And old habits died hard, so his first reaction was anger.

Why the fuck hadn't she told him this sooner? It had been her the whole time. Once again, Will's life had been molded by her hands, and he hadn't known it.

_“No, it was you, Billy, I was just producing.”_

He wasn't going to tell her, that wasn’t in his plan. But the way she was looking at him, like he could do _anything_ , made his heart pound against his chest and he couldn't help it, he moved almost unconsciously, his mouth fitting against hers.

It felt right. It felt like coming _home_.

_“I never stopped loving you."_   



	7. And in the morning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully this is a satisfying ending. Thanks for sticking with me!

The world had narrowed to the two of them.

MacKenzie's arms were full of Will, her mind still full of white noise, as he brought his hands down from her face and ran them down her arms to tug her even closer (she couldn't be close enough). The pad of paper fell from her fingertips and clattered to the floor. She didn't give it a second thought.

_It's not. But it can be._

She was so focused on Will that she never heard the office door open; she had no idea that they were no longer alone until a throat cleared behind them and she opened her eyes and pulled back from Will to find Lonny smirking, and Neal looking down at his feet, shifting his weight uncomfortably.

“I'm sorry, we didn't mean to interrupt,” Neal said, and Lonny didn't say a word, shoving his hands in his pockets, rocking back on his heels, and giving the two of them a shit-eating grin.

“I...we...” Mac started, but she was flustered, her lips swollen, and her thoughts jumbled. The kiss had happened so unexpectedly that she was half afraid that she had imagined it. Will wrapped an arm around her, tugging her to his side.

“You _were_ interrupting, so this better be fucking good,” he warned, but his words were softened by the smile tugging at the corner of his lips. She wondered if he could stop smiling. She didn't think she could.

“We can talk later,” Lonny assured Will. “Tomorrow. You might want to lock this door.” He pulled Neal out of the office, closing the door behind them with a thud. They were alone once again, and immediately Will moved to sweep MacKenzie back into his arms, his mouth on hers almost as soon as the door was shut.

“Wait,” Mac said, pulling back ever so slightly. “I don't want...I don't think I could stand it if you were...if this wasn't...what I'm trying to say...” She shook her head helplessly. “I need to know what this is. If this is just...if you're just...I couldn't handle that.”

“I'm in,” Will assured her, tightening his hold on her. “I'm all in. I'm completely, one hundred percent _in_. But, no matter, there's no chance I am ever going to hurt you again. _Never_. And I won't let anyone else hurt you either.” She thought of Brian, of his tight, painful grip on her arms, or her chin, when they were arguing, of his eyes, lighting up with anger as he came towards her, his hands clenching into fists. And she thought of Will, his touch gentle and kind, his words soft, and she felt overwhelmed. “No matter what, I'm gonna be in love with you for the rest of my life. There's no way out of that. That's just a physical law of the universe. You own me. No matter what--” Will continued, until Mac's mouth on his stopped the stream of words falling out of his mouth.

“I love you,” Mac said, her voice strong. “I love you so much.”

“I should lock my door,” Will murmured against her lips.

“Or,” Mac pulled back, a wide grin on her face. “We could just continue this somewhere else?” Will's own face split into a smile.

“Your place or mine?”

* * *

The room was still and dark.

Mac was sprawled on top of him, her arms wrapped around his body, her head tucked into his neck. He dropped a kiss to the crown of her head, but he made no move to get up. He would have stayed there forever if he could have. She sighed in her sleep, and he ran a soothing hand down her bare back, marveling at the fact that she was there, with him, in his bed.

He wasn't sure how long he had been awake, how long he had been trailing a hand down her warm skin, but eventually she shifted, tilting her head up to look at him, a lazy, soft smile on her face.

“Hey there,” her voice was warm and husky with sleep. “How long have you been awake?” He shrugged, and she pressed a kiss to the underside of his chin.

“I didn't wake you up, did I?” He asked, and she shook her head.

“I don't think so,” she told him, shifting so that she was burrowed into his side. She ran a gentle finger down his face, and over his lips. “You look like you've been thinking hard.” Will paused, wanting to gather his thoughts, wanting to get the words right (he just so desperately wanted to get this all right. He wanted to do right by her, he wanted to make sure that he was everything that she deserved).

“I was thinking about Brian,” he said carefully, and he felt Mac stiffen. “I'm just so sorry, Mac, I'm so sorry that I brought him back.”

“You did it to hurt me,” she said, but there was no accusation in her voice. It was matter-of-fact. He _had_ done it to hurt her. They both knew that.

“I did,” he admitted.

“As punishment, right? For the voicemail?” She asked, lifting her head to look him in the eye, and he flushed hot with shame.

“Yes.” She nodded, dropping her head back down.

“How could you ever think that I didn't feel the same way?” Mac's voice was quiet.

“I'm an idiot,” he admitted. “But I'm an idiot that loves the ever living fuck out of you.” She kissed him, her fingers tangling in his hair.

"You _are_ an idiot," she said, her voice teasing. "But I love you, too."

"I really am sorry, MacKenzie," his voice was husky. "I'm so damn sorry."

"I know," she said simply. "You didn't know."

"That's not," Will shook his head in frustration. "I still shouldn't have brought him here. I knew _enough._ Even if I didn't know everything." Mac brushed a kiss to his lips.

"I know Will," she reassured. "I know you're sorry. We both have long lists of things to apologize for. It's not a game of equal sums. It can't be." She kissed him again for good measure, her fingers curling around the back of his head, bringing him closer.

"I have a ring for you," Will said suddenly. Mac's eyes widened. "And, to be honest, that's another thing I need to apologize for..." She closed her eyes briefly, putting the pieces together in her mind. 

"Let me guess, you did not buy that ring when we were together?" Mac drawled, opening her eyes again, and Will could see that she was fighting hard not to be hurt by that.

"I've already said I'm an idiot, but it bears repeating. I'm a fucking idiot," he told her.

There was so much they still needed to talk about. So many wrongs, misunderstandings, so much hurt still between them. Miles and miles of mistakes and regrets that they would have to talk about, lay out end to end and start working through.

But they didn't have to do it that night.

"You really are an idiot," Mac sighed, but she kissed him all the same.

"Will you marry me?" Will asked, twisting a piece of her hair around his finger. "And you should know, if you aren't sure, if you want to wait, I'll wait, okay? You waited years for me to get my shit together, I can wait as long as..."

"Yes," Mac interrupted.

"What?"

"Yes, I'm saying yes," she grinned at him.

"Thank God," he breathed, returning her smile. Mac traced her fingertip over his wide smile, before leaning over and kissing him again, tugging on his lip gently with her teeth.

"I love you," she hummed against his lips. He wasn't sure if he would ever get used to hearing those words from her.

"I love you," he echoed. "I've never stopped."


End file.
